New trilogy on the shelf

I really cannot help this habit that I have. Whenever I travel, which happens to be quite a bit because I love to visit the familia in Vegas, I always stop by the newsstand or the bookstore in the airport to pick up something to read on my flight. I usually pack a book or two from my collection of unread books on my shelf at home before I travel so I don't have to spend money on yet more books. But...it never works out. I ALWAYS find something more interesting to read. This results in a bookshelf full of half-read books...all of them just waiting patiently for me to end their agony of sitting on my desk or beside my bed, all stacked up neatly one on top of the other.

I just realized this problem when I went home to my parent's house this past summer. Other than a high school photo on the wall, my old room doesn't really look like a room that I once inhabited...except for the books! My closet is full of them. The shelf has a pile and the floor of the closet has another pile. I even found some old books in the garage...still half-read! What a disaster. These books need a home, but yet they are still in lingo waiting for me to finish reading them and either put on a shelf or given away for someone else to read. Books are way too heavy for me to carry in my luggage. I have absolutely no trouble filling my suitcases to the maximum allotted weight with just clothes. Ask my friend Sala, who painstakingly helped me rearrange my clothes into HER SUITCASES throughout our entire trip in Australia just so I didn't have to pay the exorbitant luggage fees at the airport.

Oh gosh...I love how I start writing a post with the intention of describing what's on the title but it either never happens or it takes me forever and a day to get there. Anyways, I really hit the jackpot on my scavenger book hunt at the Las Vegas airport this past trip. I stumbled on the Mortal Instruments Trilogy by Cassandra Clare. If you're like me at the moment and totally depressed because not only is Harry Potter all grown up and married to Ginny without a named-but-should-be-nameless dark wizard to fight, but Bella and Edward also have a half-and-half vampire love clan of their own in the mountains of the Northwest (sorry for the tinsy spoiler for those who haven't finished reading). This leaves me without any extended novels about enchanted worlds to read! None! Until now...thanks to a bookstore in an airport.

Update: I have read the first two books in the MI Trilogy. I'm itching to buy the third book in the series: City of Glass. CAN'T WAIT!!!

I never thought I would say this....

...but I officially hate flying. In the last month, I have been on ten airplanes and am getting on another one tomorrow morning to head back East. Don't get me wrong. I love traveling! But, I no longer have that uncontrollable excitement to get on an airplane anymore. I used to get all giddy because of all the free stuff you get on airplanes. (I used to collect airline blankets back in college. No one told me it wasn't free...don't judge me!) But now, nothing is free, really. Well, maybe the icky disgusting feeling of oily hair and congested face pimples that I always seem to get after every flight no matter how short the duration is.

To make matters worse, I can no longer sleep peacefully for long periods of time on any of my flights. Because I came back with a lovely DVT from my excursion in the Macchu Picchu mountains earlier this year, my doctor has recommended me to walk around on all flights every hour or so. It wasn't until I was doing aerobics with some 80 year old passengers in the back of my Qantas flight (going to New Zealand) did I realize that I really detest flying. Ugh...don't even get me started on the smell of the bathrooms on planes. Gross!

Quote of the day

Came across this quote on twitter just now.

"I have an insatiable hunger for awesomeness...and a tireless pursuit for the amazing".

I like it. I'm going with it.

Tyranny of Popular Vote

This is an essay written by my Grandpa Janairo back in the 1930's. My dad has quoted parts of this essay since my childhood and luckily a copy was found recently. Thought I'd share it.


Tyranny of the Popular Vote
Man irks under the burden of compulsory obedience. It is repulsive to his sense of self respect that he should be made to follow blindly and to accept ungrudgingly that which is imposed upon him to be sheer superiority. He has revolted from spiritual tyranny when Martin Luther flung his memorable defiance in the Council of Nantes and declared that the human spirit can not be imprisoned by bigotry and fanaticism. Man struck the death knell of corporate tyranny when the days of the feudal lords were declared gone forever by the onrushing tide of human freedom embodied in the Magna Carta of England and the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America. Political liberty has been since its birth the antithesis of tyranny. And yet, paradoxical as it may seem, it has brought about, by the strength of its ideal and the dynamic force of its principle, a new tyranny strong because its set is the masses, uncompromising because it springs from ignorance, powerful because it is regarded as the people’s voice. This offspring of democracy is the tyranny of popular vote.

Need to write again

Wow....I cannot believe my last post was over a month ago! Crazy! I really need to start writing again. I'm actually back in Vegas to study for the boards. Finals finished last week Friday and that's all I have to say about that. Glad that's over with.

Because I will be here in Vegas for two months, my suitcases for traveling were both overweight but at least the guy at the US Airways counter felt so sorry for me (maybe I looked like a hot mess from packing and moving all weekend and from recovering from a huge hangover) that he let me check my begs without paying. Holla! He did give me some advice..."in the future, pack lighter". What a funny man.

So yeah, it's great to be back home. The heat is exhausting. I hung out with the parentals all day doing this and that and came home looking like a crispy lobster. Gotta love the heat in this city:) For dinner, we tried the new buffet at the new M hotel. OMG! By far, this has to be the best buffet in the city! They have free (as in included in the price) wine and beer. And because they had this station at the front entrance, the buffet really had me at hello:) All in all, a great day! Tomorrow...the real work starts.

Countdown to June 19th begins right now. Wish me luck!

Chronic disease is depressing

It is. It may not be readily apparent but it's there...

I just got off the phone from a long conversation with a family member, whom I greatly admire and adore and our conversation made me feel a lot of things. Helplessness. Depressed. Sorrow. Admiration. It is a nice palm-sized slap of reality when I have these conversations and learn about other people's circumstances, because many times I am wrapped in a nice comfortable bubble...called medical school. I cannot believe I'm calling med school a comfortable situation, but it's all relative. Compared to my cousin's life right now, mine is just peachy.

It is peachy because I do not have a father who is sick and undergoing chemotherapy. It is peachy because I do not have to worry on a constant basis whether my father's lab results this week will require him to undergo another transfusion...one of a countless number that he's already been through. My life is peachy because I am not the one taking care of a patient who has a chronic medical condition that will eventually take his life and that patient is my own father.

My classmates and I often discuss the issue of managing chronic illnesses and how difficult that will be. Every patient is different and may not respond to the treatments you prescribe, especially in a condition like cancer. The treatment is steps beyond the fact that you have to break bad news to them and that they have to deal with the bad news you bring them. This doesn't even address the fact that you may not have all the answers...especially if you're not telling them the answers that they want to hear. Some people will have diabetes forever. It won't be cured. How depressing is that kind of news to anyone? In my uncle's condition, there is no known cure. There are treatments that can help prolong his life but the bottom line is, there is no cure.

So all I could offer my cousin in her time of need was a pair of ears and moments of reassurance that hopefully this treatment will work. And hopefully her dad will tolerate this treatment. And although her parents look at her as being the "bad guy" in the situation, what she is doing is admirable. She is taking care of her sick father to the best of her ability. Because he is her father and as a child, anyone would want to take care of their parents in any way possible.

It is tough when the lines between the "caretaker role" and being a daughter gets blurred. I am sorry she has to go through this. I'm sorry for anyone to have to go through that, especially the individual who has the condition.

As I evaluate the events of my day and remember the many moments of me complaining about how much life sucks because I am stressing about school, it's conversations like this that help me adjust the lens so that I tread purposefully (hopefully with fewer complaints) in the right direction of life education.

Taking the beast out

 

Just doing some random test shots with my beast of a camera before I head out to Peru tomorrow. I'm overly excited at how many pictures I'll be getting this coming week! Wish me luck:)

10th Annual Student Charity Auction

Hey hey!

This year I have the pleasure of co-chairing GW's annual student auction, which benefits the HEALing Clinic (GW's Student Clinic). Currently, it runs through the District of Columbia's Bread for the City Organization, which is an all-in-one non-profit entity that provides all types of services, including medical care, to those in need.

It's a combined effort as both the Classes of 2011 and 2012 are working together to fund-raise money through the student auction to help fund the running costs of our awesome clinic! These running costs include overhead expenses such as electricity, water, heat, etc...as well as labs and drugs for the patient. Physicians volunteer their time and students (us) are there to gain more experience and learn more about vulnerable populations who do not have health insurance, who may be homeless, or who do not have adequate health care coverage.

I worked at the HEALing Clinic last year and first learned how to take a patient's blood pressure (old school style...not with those fancy shmancy electronic bp machines), presented my first patient to an attending and got a peek into the lives of some of DC's poor residents, who sadly may have so many co-morbid conditions. This was my first lesson into primary care.

Anyways, the clinic does great work and has some awesome people running it who are very passionate about "serving the underserved". Remember that clever little "pull at your heart strings" answer everyone says at their medical school interview? Hahaha...

Well, we are having this fundraising auction on April 17th. If anyone would like to donate an item of any type (art, wine, basketball game tickets, ballet/theatre tickets, gift certificates) or if you have the hook-up anywhere, please let me know! And if you're in DC on that date, please feel free to join! We hope to have enough wine and food for everyone and of course...some mad bidding going on:)

To see a list of items: Goodies

oh boards...

So I finally got enough courage to open up my USMLEWORLD account to start "studying" for Step 1. My subscription just recently started last weekend, but I needed a little motivation to actually open it up and start practicing with some questions. The motivation came from a small lecture one of our deans gave on Thursday about how we all should be practicing with questions at this time in our studies. "Should be"...are the key words here. For some unknown reason, I have it in my head that I can start studying when finals for this semester's courses are over...and it will all be okay with me passing in the end. Hahaha...I'm such a comedian sometimes.

Anyways...so I open my account and start taking these practice tests that I categorize by subject. I don't want to go into full blown depression about my lack of knowledge from the past two years of med school, so I create a test on my "easier" subjects like Biostatistics and Psychiatry. Boy did I get a rude awakening! Who knew that specificity and sensitivity can be plotted on a graph against each other?! *sigh*

After one test, I realized that I need to re-evaluate the rest of my semester. So...I decided to head to the kitchen to cook myself lunch, dinner, and food for the next couple days. "I can't think straight on an empty stomach" was a good enough reason to procrastinate studying even more. Then came my laundry. And now, blogging about the fact that I NEED TO START STUDYING! AAAhhhhhhhhhhh!!!

Ok, I'm done. I will go study now. I feel much better after venting/justifying/procrastinating on blogger.

Gmail's backgrounds

So I've been trying out the different backgrounds for gmail in the last few days. Since I spend a substantial amount of time looking at emails, I might as well enjoy the scenery. I was only prompted to try out the different options recently, though. Since this feature came out, I had the "ninja" theme. I find it really cute that at the very bottom of my email page, the ninja husband and ninja wife are eating dinner together. I like to think this happens around my dinner time in the evening, but alas, i discovered that the ninja meal is a semi-permanent fixture. Wouldn't that be cool though? I think there's one theme where the time of day and the weather in your city will be displayed on your screen as part of the themed background....I think. Unless I'm totally making this up. Anyways...I tried the different themes and am now back to the ninjas. I can't seem to let them go just yet.

Twitter-nation

I am in "Status update heaven"! It's official...I found my new crack and it's Twitter.

Concert update

I went to see Missy Higgins play at the 9:30 club this past Monday, and I was floored at how amazing she was live! Amazing! Lenka, a fellow Aussie (oy! oy! oy!), opened for her. What an adorable girl she is:) She had birds and little toy animals strategically placed all over the stage. It was great for me...because I like looking at the entire stage setup including whats on the ground and what color the mic is and all that jazz. It just made me smile every time I found little fake cute birds swinging from her band's instruments. Luckily, I was close enough to see all these things...center stage and front row. I also saw the list of the whole set Missy was planning to play for the night. Sadly, the "Special Two" wasn't on the list. But...holla at your girl! Front row and center! And we didn't get to the club that early either. However, it was also a snow day in the District so I guess people were less inclined to stand in the cold too far in advance before the concert started.

It's so bad now, though, because I was listening to Missy on my ipod this morning on my way to school but I had to switch to another artist because she was absolutely amazing live that I can't really listen to her recorded stuff just yet.

On another note, she played this instrument that I have never seen before. It sounds just like a harmonica but you blow air into this tube that is connected to a tiny little piano. Does anyone know what this instrument is called? Lol...it's such a cute little thing!

An angel in Hell

I was just about ready to start studying when I came across this link to an article on Glamour magazine by Eve Ensler (The Vagina Monologues). She traveled deep into the Republic of Congo to follow the work of Dr. Denis Mukwege, who runs the OB/GYN ward at Panzi Hospital.

Ms. Ensler warns readers before-hand of the horrors you will read in this article, but what is astonishing is how mind-blowing femicide has become in this region of the world. Everyone hears about the stories of rape victims and they are all traumatic. However, reading through the individual accounts from the survivors of these atrocities gives me chills knowing that there are human beings that are capable of such destruction.

I believe the author makes an excellent point in her article in saying that these acts of violence are done to achieve a goal: destroying the human soul. My heart broke in reading about how strong these women are and how they are able to live each day with hope. It is a comfort knowing that there are amazing people, like Dr. Mukwege around in this world, who dedicate their lives to repairing the after-math of inhumane violence.

Here's an excerpt from the article quoting Dr. Mukwege on why he became a physician: “My father was a pastor. He was very gentle, very human. From him I got the caring to treat patients. When we would go and visit sick people together, he would pray. I would ask, ‘Why can’t you give them tablets or prescriptions?’ He said, ‘I am not a doctor.’ I decided then that prayer is not enough. People must take things into their own hands. Asking God does not change anything. He gives us the ability to say yes or no. You must use your hands, your mind. When I receive women here who are hungry, I can’t say, ‘God bless you.’ I have to give them something to eat. When someone is suffering, I can’t tell her about God, I have to treat her pain. You can’t hide yourself in religion. Not a solution.”

In this part of the world, Dr. Mukwege is the doctor, healer, pastor, prayer leader, comforter, advocate and listener...I'll add one more to the list: inspiration.

Induced labor

Today I saw seven patients with my preceptor, which is the most I have ever seen on a given afternoon in her office. Usually there are two other students besides myself and today there was only one, so maybe that's why I was able to see more patients.

There was nothing too out of the ordinary with today's patients. There was one lady who had an aweful year with both her grandmother and mother passing away within a month of each other. That's so aweful. She also was on a job placement abroad with her spouse when the hotel they were staying at was bombed by terrorists. Yikes! That's a story you don't hear everyday. I always feel awkward in these kinds of situations, because I never know what to say. Death in the family is one thing and I can empathize with that, but a near death experience from a bomb!?! Hmmm.... "that must have been so frightening!" I think my eye balls nearly popping out of its sockets was enough concern for my patient's taste.

On a side note, another patient wanted to be induced into labor on Friday the 13th. Now that's a first. Usually people attempt to stay hidden under something sturdy in fear of something terrible happening to them on Friday the 13th. I know I tread through my day a little more carefully on 04/20 because I went to a high school that constantly had bomb threats on that day to celebrate the Columbine shootings. So this patient has an interesting outlook on life requesting this date. But maybe she wants her baby born on Valentine's Day...who knows. However, she was told by my preceptor that if she was induced on Friday, she will likely have her baby that day. I'm secretly rooting for her to have her baby on Saturday, though...just to be on the safe side.

Month of concerts

It has been an awesome past couple days. First, I found out randomly that one of my favorite singers will be coming to DC early March. Missy Higgins, the singer-songwriter from Down Under will be playing at the 9:30 club on March 2nd and who else to open for her but that one cute Asian guy, Justin Nozuka:) This concert alone made my week! I've been dying to see Missy live and I just watched an update on her U.S. Green tour...and what do you know...I'll be seeing her myself! Holla!

Then...I was sitting in my normal back corner of the lecture hall listening so attentively to cases of nephrotic syndrome while checking my emails on the AnnaBerry (my blackberry) when I stumbled on an informational email from the GradLife Office announcing ticket sales of Jason Mraz and Ben Folds for a concert next weekend. OMG! There are three bands/artists that I would just fall over if I saw live and the Geek in the Pink is one of those artists! Holla again:) It will be a great month of live music!

Air going nowhere

Ok...what kind of genius attempts to pump air into a bike tire but somehow proceeds to completely deflate the tire?? There goes my brilliant plan to ride my bike early tomorrow morning to take a spin class. Bummer.

The sidewalk steals gloves

I was walking to school this morning and came across a lonely blue glove lying on the sidewalk on New Hampshire Ave and two blocks down from there, found another lonely and misplaced glove (a red one this time) laying on some grass. This made me even more angry than I already was because I was desperately searching for my left hand glove minutes earlier at home!

I loved this particular pair of gloves too! I'm so sad right now, which probably explains why I've been in such a sour mood all day.

Video of the Big day

Journey to History - The Inauguration of Barack Obama - Documentary from Juneteenth Works on Vimeo.

So my roommate Amisha's friend, Chilembwe Mason, made this video of our Obama extravaganza on January 20th, 2009. I'm so glad he made this because I really couldn't see too much over the huge cowboy hat (yes...the one you see right in the middle) and 6 footers directly in front of me. No love for the shorties.

An old article and 798 MB of memory

Last night as I was about ready to turn in for the night, which is a rarity because I never PREPARE to go to sleep, I stumbled on an old article I found saved on my computer that was written about my last season playing tennis at the "U", aka the University of Montana. I was actually trying to back up some old files onto my external hard drive so I can free up some space on my computer.

Supposedly, computers don't have an unlimited amount of memory that I can use and abuse to download all my music and pictures and nerdy med school audio lectures. Who knew!? And a couple days ago, this annoying window on my computer kept popping up telling me that I had an urgent problem that I needed to address. Of course, "urgent" without anything related to medical school doesn't really translate to mean "important" to me. You know...little things like life insurance, overdraft fees on my bank account, and dental appointment notices really get lost in the shuffle of things. So...a tiny little annoying window on my computer will definitely get last dibs on my attention. Oh, but my wonderful little punk of a dell didn't like to be ignored and has now upgraded to demanding my attention by making all kinds of weird noises. I finally checked the "urgent" notices and pleasantly found out that I have only 798 MB of memory left for me to use and abuse. That's not even enough memory for a decent discography of Michael Jackson.

This is so depressing.

So I proceeded to save everything on my external and found a few files to delete when I stumbled on the article, which was the point of me writing this blog but somehow it has shifted to me rambling on and on about this stinky dell and it's annoying messages.

Anyways, the article was written about my last season and how I was losing in the beginning of the season...haha. I was captain and having the most agonizing losing streak of my college tennis career. Other than the not so few number of rejection letters I received when applying to medical school, this was another low point in my life. I read it twice last night just reminiscing about how much fun it was playing college tennis. Even losing was fun at times if the match was good. I remember playing this awesome tennis player from Sacramento state and actually having a great time despite her kicking my ass and leaving me with a couple bagels (translation = score was 6-0, 6-0). Oh the memories!

I miss playing sometimes and probably should get the dusty racket and some balls out one of these days.

Obama-nation:)

Thanks to Dave and Tyson for giving us tickets!! So awesome:)